Fishermen Continue Fishing In Fosu Lagoon
Fishermen who fish in the Fosu Lagoon in Cape Coast say they would continue to fish in the lagoon as usual because it would be a disgrace for them to stop fishing in the lagoon when the Fosu goddess had provided enough fish for them.
They intimated that whenever they suspended fishing in he lagoon, however short the interval, the priestess of the Fosu goddess complains that the goddess is not happy.
“When we don't fish, the goddess through the priestess complains that she [the goddess] has an itchy hair due to the many fingerlings and so we should fish for them. The goddess will not give to us her children anything unwholesome,” they said.
They added that comparatively, the fingerlings (mpatoa) from the Fosu Lagoon was the most tasty. And so three weeks after a warning from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cautioning the public not to eat fish from the lagoon, fishermen continue to fish and sell the 'mpatoa' from the lagoon.
The Central Regional office of the EPA in a report three weeks earlier had said that the lagoon was the third most polluted in the country and eating fish from it could cause cancers and nervous system breakdowns.
“We want the officials of the EPA to understand that they do not understand the lagoon better than those of us who work in the lagoon,” a group of them said in an interview.
Mr Bright Mensah, one of the spokespersons for the fishermen surrounded by about 10 other fishermen, said there was no way the lagoon was polluted considering the fact that he had worked in the lagoon for the past 35 years and was eating the fish and was very healthy.
He said the lagoon, as natural as it was, regenerated itself, adding that there were years that the lagoon became more silted than this but they still fished in it.
“If somebody in an air-conditioned office somewhere is not doing his job well, he must be made responsible and let us be left alone”, he added.
Many other fishermen were in the lagoon fishing while others were coming out of it with their catch.
The fishermen expressed their displeasure over what the EPA had said, adding that there were no prior consultations before the warning was sounded.
They said the report in the media had greatly affected sale of the fingerlings on the market and that many of the over 200 fishermen who plied their trade in the lagoon had been facing very difficult financial problems since the caution was issued.